Monday, June 30, 2014

From Michel Bauwens' review of the book here. On the transition from capitalism to the commons:

"Political and social revolution is preceded by the emergence, within
the old system, of the new productive system and its value logic. Not
the other way around, as the socialist and marxist tradition has
claimed. Today, in the very womb of capitalism, the new mode of
production, the new way of value creation and distribution, is already
emerging and growing, but under the domination of the old system still,
but, as its logic is fundamentally different of the logic of capital, it
cannot possibly be subsumed forever, and prepares the ground for a
structural transformation. This structural transformation, or 'phase
transition', will make the emergent subsystem into the new dominant
logic."

On his radio show today he discussed the Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby case. The Court said that closely-held private companies like Hobby Lobby can refuse to provide certain forms of birth control on its health insurance plan if it is against their religious beliefs. While there are a number of issues on this case, the one Hartmann focused upon is the Supreme Court's Constitutional authority based on Article 3, Section 2, which reads in part:

"In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls,
and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have
original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the
supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and
Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress
shall make."

There
has been much talk in integral circles about trans-partisanship, on how
we work together to implement a better political system. Unfortunately
this usually revolves around selling the AQAL model, that to achieve
this end we must use this particular model not only to understand the
problem but to implement its solution. That is, we have to teach this
model to government officials which will thereby elevate their personal
level of understanding so that they can then use the model for
coordinating such trans-partisanship.

On the other hand we have the likes of Ralph Nader, who it seems has
never heard of such a model and is making inroads into just the sort of
trans-partisanship necessary to overcome what has become a fascist
oligarchy in the US.

This article discusses a piece by multi-millionaire Nick Hanaue, who said:

"And what do I see in our future now? I see pitchforks. At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the
dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country—the 99.99
percent—is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and
have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top 1
percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom
50 percent shared about 18 percent. Today the top 1 percent share about
20 percent; the bottom 50 percent, just 12 percent.

In the past few weeks, an overwhelming number of comments have been
filed at the FCC in favor of protecting an open internet and real net
neutrality. Despite this, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has not scheduled
large, public field hearings.
Before Chairman Wheeler considers passing rules which could end net
neutrality and open the door for pay-to-play lanes, he should face the
American public by holding large, open public meetings across the
country.

Senator Sanders quotes the regressives on the first time around in Iraq. And we're going to even give them the time of day again?

Dick Cheney

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." June 20, 2005 (Source)

"I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint
of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as
liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in)
weeks rather than months." March 16, 2003 (Source)

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has
weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to
use against our friends, against our allies, and against us.” (Source)

"If we had to do it over again we would do exactly the same thing.” September 13, 2006 (Source)

“What we did in Iraq was exactly the right thing to do. If I had it
to recommend all over again, I would recommend exactly the same course
of action.” October 5, 2004 (Source)

Bill Kristol

You've been living like a little girl
In the middle of your little world
And your mind, your tiny mind
You know you've really been so blind
Now's your time to burn your mind
You're falling far too far behind

Speaking of jazz fusion, here's another golden oldie by Acoustic
Alchemy. They too infused various cultural riffs in their hybrids. This
one has a middle eastern flair. And the virtuosity is impeccable.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Jon Stewart on the regressive culture of defendency. The chicken hawks have no problem protecting every other country from oppression except our own, at every turn cutting or blocking domestic spending for our needy because "we don't have the money," yet frothing rabidly to spend, spend, spend on military intervention at every turn.

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Continuing on a theme in recent posts, let's explore Otto Laske’s article
in the Aug/Nov ’13 issue of ILR. It is pertinent given
that it supports and espouses a developmental framework. But it also
cautions about its uses and misuses, something to which we must be
attentive, especially when such frameworks unconsciously maintain the
very sort of societal obstructions which they claim to overcome.

Therein Laske differentiates between
culture and civilization. The 'soul' resides in the former whereas the
latter is our everyday work life. In that sense it is akin to this
thread, in that religion is the structuring force of a culture at large
in its many domains. What has happened with developmental tech is that
it has become a tool of its socio-historical capitalist civilization, in
that its culture of the higher reaches of human potential (soul) has
been instrumentalized to function as more efficient and productive
workers within that context. Hence we get these spiritual evolutionaries
running around thinking they're at the peak of human development,
marketing and selling their wares at exorbitant rates, and sending their
clients back into the same capitalist work world as if they can
magically change it from within while not addressing the capitalist meme
itself. And meanwhile continuing to consume everything at unsustainable
rates thereby maintaining that status quo. Laske sees this as an
unconscious bias of developmentalists that all the work is internal and
individual, overlooking the external and social policies also necessary.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

This article claims that while Picketty is right in what he asserts, he doesn't address the real problem that we cannot sustain the kind of growth we used to, for it lives beyond the sustainable means of earth's carrying capacity. True, but Rifkin addresses this move from capitalist consumption to
commons sharing, thereby aligning with a sustainable biospheric
capacity.

Further commenting on the satires, recall what Laske said in this post:

"I am also concerned with effects of systems on human agents because
systems are typically used to classify, constrain, and subdue
individuals, often with the pretension of 'helping' them (as in
'developmental coaching')."

Compare with p. 6 of the satires:

“The number of people doing massage far outnumbers the number of
people that actually exist! So we have to use our imagination in
creating a market by telling people what they really need […] by judging them according to our 'programs' and telling them what they should do to be healthy.”

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Further commenting on this post, as is evident from these 30-year old satires, the same issues are
pertinent today. While I've been all in on the human potential movement,
and now the integral movement, they have the same problems in common.
I'm not at all opposed to an elite vanguard exploring and developing our
higher potentials in intensive and focused communities. But it's then
on how we formulate such achievements, how we envision the next phases,
how we implement it in the larger society, how we share it and induce a
societal shift for the better. I see that happening in the emerging
Commons which Rifkin merely documented. I don't see that happening with
the kennilinguists, but do see hope in the broader integral movement as
it includes Morin, (pre-metaphysical) Bhaskar, Rifkin and many others,
including the extremely rich forum that is IPS.

See this article. It's not just climate scientists concerned about life overall. It's capitalists that know how to measure their bottom line and it is already, and will continue to be, drastically affected by climate change. Its effects included "dramatic declines in agricultural yields, loss of productivity
due to intense heat and up to $35 billion spent dealing with coastal
storms." "Paulson blamed a mindset of 'short-termism' in both the business
community and in Washington for the fact that there isn't more emphasis
on climate-related risks." Perhaps a better term is don't-give-a fuckism, as in anything other than a profit. The above capitalists can think beyond the bottom line while still keeping the latter in mind.

Continuing from the last post, I'm in alignment with the general parameters of an MIP-civ. I just have questions about not
only responsible management but in how we determine what is considered
higher levels that do the managing. Just taking the example of the model
of hierarchical complexity, the system most used by the kennilinguists.
Let's look at how they've fared so far in judging people's level of
complexity. There are many within their own ranks that have challenged
its rampant capitalistic orientation, let alone reducing everyone who is
not a kennilnguist to some lower level. Even the very nature of how the
MHC formulates a higher level with Hegelian dialectic has been
challenged by many in the movement, like Cook-Greuter, Torbert, Laske,
Kallio and many more.*

Continuing from this post, I just saw the season finale of Continuum,
a sci-fi thriller created by Showcase out of Canada. While there are
several sub-plots, its main plot line like others discussed above is how
tech evolves to enable massive surveillance. And it's a battle for who
controls that tech. Which of course is what's happening now with the
battle over net neutrality. The corporations want the control for
profit, same as in the series, while otherwise the Commons wants control
to be distributed. If/when energy becomes distributed as in the TIR
vision such political power can also be used wisely by the multitudes
that attain to ecological consciousness.

Monday, June 23, 2014

Last night this eleven year old stunned me and everyone else with her singing voice. The video below does the prelim and after interview but cuts off a lot of the song. This video has the first part of the song.

See this story and the video below. Matthews tries to blame the Democrats for not getting its agenda done. Warren notes that the progressives (not to be confused with the Democrats) are fighting tooth and nail to implement their agenda but they are being continually blocked by the regressives. In the Senate the regressives filibuster just about everything that doesn't feed the already rich. In the House they won't even bring such issues to a vote. Although Matthews is right that most Democrats are not fighting like the progressive Warren or Sanders. Many of them are bought off too. But per Warren she and her ilk need us to speak up, to put pressure on both the Dems and the GOP to enact our populist agenda. We cannot give up the fight.

I attended a massage therapy school in San Diego from the summer of '84 to summer of '85. It was called IPSB,
which at the time stood for the Institute of Psycho-Structural
Balancing. It later changed it's name to the International Professional
School of Bodywork. Apparently it sold the earlier name to another
school which still has that name in LA, but it's a different school. The
link above is to the same school I attended, whose history is in this page.

At a time of increased corporate control over the media and the flow of
information, it is absolutely imperative that the Internet remain on a
level playing field, open to all. Whether you are a major news corporation or a
one-person blogging operation, whether you are Walmart or a family-owned
small business, there should be net neutrality for all.

Right now the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) is considering a rule that would allow large Internet providers
like Verizon and Comcast to charge businesses for faster access to
Internet users. This rule would give large corporations yet another
advantage over small Internet companies and average citizens. These
types of pay-to-play agreements will end the democratic foundation of
the Internet, and strike a major blow against the free flow of ideas.

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Nader's new book Unstoppable is about this topic. To discuss it his Center for the Study of Responsive Law held a day-long conference with members of both parties coming together on issues about which they agree: minimum wage, civil liberties, corporate welfare, the defense budget, trade, empire, Wall Street crime and the commercialization of childhood. See this link for videos of each segment. A video of Nader's opening remarks is below. Therein he talks about the 3 stages of such alignment, which starts with overwhelming public sentiment and action. Only then does it attract media and government attention, which then gets such issues on the legislative table. So it's on us to get the ball rolling.

Continuing from this post, the above question is necessary. Who determines what 'integral' means? As if obvious from this forum,
there is quite a bit of debate about what an integral level is, what it
means, how it is conceived. It's far from settled so as to use it as
some kind a profiling system.

"One of the historical criticisms of hierarchical theories of
development is that the person developing or using the hierarchy almost
inevitably finds himself at the top of said hierarchy. Whoops! There’s a
not-so-subtle tendency to feel like a master of the universe when the
whole map of creation from soup to nuts appears to be laid out before
you."

So that's one trap. If we find ourselves at the top of any system we need to wonder about that system.

Saturday, June 21, 2014

Continuing from this post, and bringing in a discussion of the conveyor belt from the FB IPS discussion, I've agreed with Wilber's comments that an integral government and law that
would provide that upward attractor while allowing people to be where
they are. He distinguishes between the freedom to think and believe
whatever we want, but not to act on
such beliefs if that behavior is not from the highest societal level.

His special new rule last night was on how America is like the girl who thinks she can change the bad boy. The problem is with us (the regressives, actually) for thinking all those idiotic things, like if we just install an American style democracy everything would be ok, that it would change centuries of sectarian violence. Perhaps we're the ones that need a Dr. Phil style intervention.

This was a debated question last night on Real Time. Maher quoted Richard Clark, who was part of a panel which received all of the intelligence data on the leaks. Clark said that Snowden's releases "helped the terrorists," a rather vague expression that doesn't at all answer the question. Greenwald makes the case that the government to date has provided no evidence that this is so. The government's response on such a charge is that to do so would further release classified information to terrorists. Really? They can't release any evidence without this concern? It doesn't sound right. Rieckhoff on the show asked if Snowden can be sure if what he release didn't harm anyone. Greenwald rightly countered that Snowden is being accused of a crime here, and the burden of proof is on the government to provide evidence to that effect.

Here's Jim Wallace, noting what is of ultimate concern in his religion today:

"I believe the most compelling narratives for dealing with climate
change must be moral ones, theological ones, and biblical ones,
especially if we are to reach and engage the faith community -- which
every successful social movement must do.
[...] Ultimately, as followers of Christ, climate change is about our
faith, our theology, our moral identity, and our calling as God's
children. Climate change is not another issue to move higher up the list
of our concerns. Rather it is the concern central to all other issues."

Continuing from this post, Panikkar
is quoted below, indicative of moving beyond enthocentrism, i.e, moving religion into at least rationality. The world can no longer tolerate
a 'tribal' religion, for we see what it does, e.g., Iraq. And what it
does in US government, rolling back decades of humanitarian and
environmental progress in its name. We can no longer afford to "let them
stop where they want to," for they very well could destroy life on this
planet in the form of climate change denial and inaction to correct our
complicity.Panikkar:

Friday, June 20, 2014

Jon Stewart goes over the myriad ways regressives deny climate change, despite science, facts and insurmountable evidence. And even when members of their own Party tell them so. But he has a sure fire solution to get them to admit to it.

Thursday, June 19, 2014

This article underlies the real reason the regressives cut unemployment insurance. They claimed that if we cut the benefits these lazy bastards living the cushy life on such extravagant income they would get off their lazy asses and take one of those superabundent jobs just lying around waiting for the taking. Turns out that the long-term unemployed, who in many cases have long employment histories and good skill sets, have just given up and quit trying to find work in a job market where few exist.

See this story. Yes, the real and only reason for the US invasion: oil. The rest has been smoke and mirrors all along. And why the chicken hawks want to go back. Of course they'll say: "But
your source is Aljazeera, a terrorist propaganda machine." Same bullshit rhetoric
to misdirect from the truth of this obvious bottom line. And ironic about who is doing the propaganda here.

According to the Commonwealth Fund, ranking 11 developed nations. The ACA may help out some due to providing insurance for more than before, cutting some costs and increasing effectiveness. But it's still based on the private insurance system, a large part of why we suck in the first place. But those who want a privatized system just will not face facts, insisting we're the best in the world when it just ain't so. The best is the UK, the least privatized and most socialized. Yes, socialized medicine has better results and saves money. But US regressives could really give a shit about either of those things, contrary to their bullshit spin.

See this article. It used to be that 'innovation' meant investing in research and development (R&D) to create new markets and consumers. Now the capitalists mean by that term cutting costs, usually in the form of cutting jobs. How that relates to the meaning of 'innovation' is explored by the author, as there are different types. The cost cutting kind is for when capital is scarce and not readily available for the costly R&D type. Hence the regressives continual whining about cutting costs and R&D. But the fact is that capital is plentiful right now; according to Bain there is a "capital superabundance."

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

In this video Jon Stewart highlights all the regressive talking heads on Iraq, wrong the first time and still wrong about going in again. When the original reason for invasion was proven wrong, WMD's, they got on this spin about democracy being 'seeded' in Iraq. Wrong again.

Layman Pascal has an interesting comment about what he calls massive internal profiling civilization (MIP-civ). It arose in a discussion of a pre-crime unit using precognition to predict crimes before they happened, like in the movie Minority Report. LP said: "We absolutely need to manage an intelligent transition into detailed typological profiling and flexible probability assessment." He elaborates with cautions.

See this story. With the increasing sectarian violence in Iraq major media is once again inviting the same regressive talking heads who were dead wrong the first time around to give advice on the current situation. And said media is not even mentioning how wrong they were on the first Iraq war, further giving these so-called 'pundits' credibility again. The article points out this is likely because the media bought their bullshit the first time around and can't face up to the cognitive dissonance that they too were wrong. So we're hearing the same lines as before on why we should militarily intervene in Iraq. Lines that have definitively been proven wrong time and again.

Continuing the post on the X factor, I was re-reading some of my prior IPS posts and will re-post some of them below on this infamous X. Again I warn: it's egghead stuff. From this post and following:

Quoting Keller on Faber: “When he collates differance with divinity […] this difference
signifies a self-deconstructing otherness. Yet is does not destroy
rationality, or even the categorical scheme. […] Faber in this way
continues the Whiteheadian struggle to capture in language a difference
between God and the world, or one and the other, without reinscribing
the settled boundary between them—or erasing their difference. This
differential nondualism [...] translates for him into 'God's
in/difference.' One must not lose that inaudible slash, else
'in/difference' will be confused with the chilling apatheia.[…]
Thus 'this negative assertion paradoxically requires that because God
is indeed nothing beyond all differences, God thus appears only in
differences.' […] Faber's divine in/difference morphs into difference
itself, the difference so radical as to be comprised by the 'essential
relationality' of all differences” (190).

Monday, June 16, 2014

I'll provide some guest posts in this one. Balder did a recent TSK (Time-Space-Knowledge) training retreat where he and his team had to contextualize and elaborate on a section of Tarthang Tulku's work on the unknown. Warning: This is for philosophical eggheads like me.

Balder said: The thrust of the passage, as I read it, is to trace a sort of
dialectical transformation in the understanding of the relationship
between not-knowing and knowledge (arriving at a version of integral
asperspectivity). In TSK, three levels of knowledge (and of time and
space) are commonly discussed; this passage describes the transition
from level one to level two. He moves from dualistic framing of the
terms, to two transitional perspectives in which a) the unknown is seen
to manifest in the known (in a way that is inseparable from the
structure and authenticity of knowledge, as the limits to knowledge),
and b) knowing to manifest in not-knowing or the unknown (as the open
"x" of withdrawn potential rather than the forbidding "x" of nothingness
or absolute limitation). He then shifts to a view in which the (strong
or somewhat weaker) dichotomy of knowledge and not-knowing is seen to
be a function of limited positioning itself; this is replaced by a more
pervasive, aperspectival knowledgeability (where the self no longer
confines itself to, or needs to be, 'knowing' or 'the knower'; and where
not-knowing is understood, not just to surround or underlie knowledge,
but to be inseparable from or intrinsic to it.) You might relate this
to your gal, Khora,* or to the future infinitive (which is generative in
its always-never-arriving).

A
study conducted by UCLA's Department of Psychiatry has revealed that
the kind of face a woman finds attractive on a man can differ
depending on where she is in her menstrual cycle. For example:
if she is ovulating, she is attracted to men with rugged and
masculine features. However, if she is menstruating or
menopausal, she tends to be more attracted to a man with duct tape
over his mouth and a knife lodged in his chest with a bat up his ass
while he is on fire. No
further studies are expected on this subject.

See this Hedges piece. Chomsky
has always been a key mentor for me. In Hedges piece on him Chomsky
accurately defines the transition away from self sufficiency to slave
wage labor in the first industrial revolution, much like Rifkin. About
how they fought back by forming workers unions and cooperatives. And how
the capitalists crushed them by refining propaganda to create the
narcissistic consumer constantly living in fear over the Other who
wanted to destroy our way of living.

And how this insidious propaganda lies hidden in our highest
institutions of learning, this consumerist self enclosure, the subtle
worldview hiding behind our most noble endeavors and never recognized,
off the radar. Even the likes of Integral Institute, a supposed
evolutionary institution, promotes this form of economy which is not
only antithetical to its stated goals but which is feeding the very
beast it purports to want to transcend. Even our participation in
Facebook, which has co-opted the Commons, where the money they make on us
contributes to the very kind of labor practices and environmental
degradation we claim to shun.

Sunday, June 15, 2014

In this post Nader tells us what lessions progressives should learn from Cantor's recent loss. While Cantor's opponent, David Brat, is a mixed bag his campaign is instructive. Brat's message was strongly against crony capitalism and Wall Street malfeasance. He criticized the Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. And it is here that he thinks there can be an alliance with populist conservatives like Brat.

He notes that agnosticism and atheism via formop cognition are
legitimate forms of orange spirituality (191). They just need to
acknowledge the legitimacy of other levels of spirituality, both
above and below it. Hence the need for the conveyor belt. I'd here
disagree with the statement that seeing absolute reality in terms of
finite matter and energy is a reduction, but that's an argument long
rehashed in many other threads.

Amber religion though needs to open up to orange and above
religion. So is that saying religion itself must go through an orange
agnostic or atheist stage? Or are there other forms of theistic
orange religion. I don't see that addressed here. While there are
examples of orange and green religion they are apparently not openly
discussed by religious hierarchies.

Saturday, June 14, 2014

We all know they are spin masters. And that the spin is often just obfuscation and misdirection, usually not based in fact or what they really believe. So Bill Maher has a few ways they plan to spin their love of minorities to garner that vote. It's based an actual case that he applies to some of the others.

I just heard about this on a radio show, their website here. Related to the last few posts, it's an example of spiritual practice that goes beyond the interior of an individual's state experiences into other domains of enaction, particularly a social justice lobby that engages with the political process. Alleluia sisters. And, by the way, their political agenda is akin to Warren's.

Here's Wilber's essay on integral spirituality that
predated the book on the topic. Much of the text in the essay is
repeated in the book almost verbatim. In talking of spirituality he
mentions
meditative states like satori and locates them in the inside of
interior individual consciousness (9). He also locates spiritual
traditions in this zone, noting how they were deficient in the other
quadrants (13-14). He thinks this can be remedied by integral
methodological pluralism (IMP), which per above locates different
paradigms in their respective zones and validity criteria (16). Within
the zones there are different lines with their distinct levels of
hierarchical complexity, and they cannot be directly compared with one
another given the different enactive methods (27). Of note at this point
is that the spiritual line is focused on ultimate concern with Fowler
as an example (27). So is spirituality just about inside interior
individual experiences?

For those not on Facebook, or a member of the IPS forum there, I will post some of my other responses below.

So
what would constitute an appropriate social spiritual practice as a
topic here? Engaged Buddhism? Insight dialogue? John Heron's relational
spirituality? On the latter Heron says: "A more convincing account of
spirituality is that it is about multi-line integral development
explored by persons in relation. [...] spirituality is located in the
interpersonal heart of the human condition where people co-operate to
explore meaning, build relationship and manifest creativity through
collaborative action inquiry into multi-line integration and
consummation."

Friday, June 13, 2014

Update: If you're a member of Facebook see the ongoing discussion at the FB IPS forum, which starts with the question about Clinton and Warren.

I also posted the Warren v. Clinton in the Facebook IPS forum. One commenter (Mark) asked if such a political question belonged in a forum on spirituality. Which opens a whole can of worms on what integral postmetaphysical spirituality implies.

I responded: What
could be more spiritual than helping people earn a living wage to feed
their families. Than addressing income inequality so that people have a
fair shot at creating enough money to meet their basic needs and have
some surplus time and energy to devote to needs higher on the hierarchy,
like spiritual pursuits? And I don't mean just traditional religion but
so-called integral postmetaphysical spirituality (IPS)? Seems most of
us that are into such spiritual pursuits are already privileged with
enough surplus in the lower levels like survival, membership, individual
autonomy and transcendental awareness that we take for granted that
most of the population is struggling to eat and pay the rent. If you are
the latter you will not focus on much of anything else, let alone IPS.

This is Burnett's interesting article on the possible showdown for the Democrat nomination for President. One of the pundits observed that Clinton is "to the right of her Democratic base." To say the least. Warren, on the other hand, favors all of Robert Reich's list of progressive populist issues and Clinton opposed them all. Clinton has championed third way politics favored by Wall Street, while Warren wants to put them in jail.

There is an enlightening Pew Research study of the various factions in American politics. Democrats, Republicans and Independents are divided into 8 groups:

It's
been a long time since I read Wilpert's article and after reading the
green section I'll give the whole thing another read. I appreciate that
he recognizes the greens "take a holistic view that integrates humanity
and nature"* and "roughly corresponds with Wilber's centauric or
vision-logic stage," not something the Lingam will admit.** And I find
that not only I but the Commons as a whole is a mix of the various
quadrant aspects he discusses (as well as 'levels').** For example while
I detest fascist capitalism I can accept a small business oriented
around conscious capitalism triple-bottom lines. I'd prefer though a
cooperative business where all the workers own it. While I oppose State
socialism I still want the government to be active in creating
progressive labor and environmental laws. And I most certainly advocate
for green cultural values, but I don't concede that by nature cultural
values are 'conservative.' That's something Haidt does too and he's flat
out wrong.

See this story. Fox had very little coverage of the two Tea Partiers that killed two cops in Las Vegas, and has since gone completely silent on the story. Usually they're all over any hint of terrorism, that is, when the alleged perpetrators are brown people. But these perps where not only white but espoused the very same sorts of things Fox has been programming into them for eons. Fox wants it to go away, to not face that their rancid rhetoric leads not only to ignorant obedience to regressive policies but incites the very actions that happened here. Note that these killers were part of the Bundy standoff, which Fox glorified story after story, day after day. See the story for the details.

See this article. House majority leader Cantor was defeated by Dave Brat not for the usual talking head reasons. He won because he called out big $ corruption, not just Cantor's but the entire corrupt fascist oligarchy.

Great
news because it shows that both Dems and the GOP can rally around the
same issue, defeating crony capitalism and big $ in government.
According to the article that is what defeated Cantor in the primary.
And bankers who caused the meltdown should go to jail, wow. He can work
with Senator Warren on that one. And support the proposed new
Constitutional amendment reversing the Supreme Corp's decisions in
Citizens United and McCutcheon. He supports old school 'free
markets,' i.e., not the fascist corporate capitalism that has taken
over. I'm encouraged.

“All
of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone
to jail.” - See more at:
http://www.republicreport.org/2014/dave-brat-cantor/#sthash.fE7FlE1w.dpuf

“All
of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone
to jail.” - See more at:
http://www.republicreport.org/2014/dave-brat-cantor/#sthash.fE7FlE1w.dpuf

“All
of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone
to jail.” - See more at:
http://www.republicreport.org/2014/dave-brat-cantor/#sthash.fE7FlE1w.dpuf

“All
of the investment banks, up in New York and D.C., they should have gone
to jail.” - See more at:
http://www.republicreport.org/2014/dave-brat-cantor/#sthash.fE7FlE1w.dpuf

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Regressives were in an uproar over the new EPA carbon policy because yes, it would eliminate coal 80,000 jobs in the next 15 years. They could give a shit about how the coal emissions were accelerating climate change, which would probably eliminate exponentially more jobs. But on a more immediate note, they could give a shit about the jobs we've lost due to our trade deficit from February to April, about 700,000. Yes, that 700,000 in 3 months compared to 80,000 over 3 years and nary a peep. And why are they completely silent on the trade deficit job losses?

See this post. While he thinks that vested interests play a role in this he thinks ideology and anti-intellectualism are more significant. The ideology is Ayn Randian, with libertarian self interest the main driver. Climate change challenges that notion by providing evidence that unrestricted self interest is causing an environmental calamity. Combine that with their anti-intellectualism and the only response to scientific fact is that the latter must be involved in a vast left-wing conspiracy to destroy capitalism.

Michael Mann's post though thinks Krugman goes to easy on the vested interests, which are inextricably linked to the aforementioned ideology.

In this IPS post and following I'm exploring a book chapter by W.F. Overton called "Relationism and Relational Developmental Systems: A Paradigm for Developmental Science in the Post-Cartesian Era." I've included the first few posts below but see the link for the ongoing discussion.

We
see many agreements with the above article and this thread. It
discusses the worldview shift from Cartesian split to relationism,
broadly equivalent to the shift from a metaphysical to postmetaphysical
worldview. The former accepts splitting, foundationalism (essentialism)
and atomism, all indicative of the metaphysical. Splitting requires pure
forms or elements in a strict either/or absolute law of
noncontradiction based on a foundational, unchanging reality. It also
requires linear causal sequences (38-9).

Relationism heals the split with forms that flow across fuzzy
boundaries and relate to each other as indissociable compliments, hence
relationism instead of foundationalism. Instead of linear causal
sequences there is a holistic mereological relation of parts to wholes.
He uses Luhmann as an example, to which I'll return later on his
mereology. Of note are the 3 principles in this holism: the identity of
opposites, the opposites of identity and the synthesis of wholes. The
first is how parts relate to the whole with fuzzy boundaries. The second
is how the parts retain their unique identities as distinct categories.
The third is on how the other two relate in what I would translate into
kennilingus as 1st, 2nd and 3rd person perspectives. Or as he terms it,
how the personal, material and socio-cultural balance and interrelate.
We see this in Bryant's 3 domains and in the kennilingus 4 quads
(41-52).

Monday, June 9, 2014

According to this story, regular Walmart shoppers are frequenting the store less because of its low wages and poor labor treatment. Workers fighting back through strikes and demonstrations, progressive orgs highlighting the issue, and people like us spreading the work through P2P media as well as contacting our representatives through petitions and direct contact are making a difference in Walmart's bottom line. Keep up the good work Commoners. We can and will change this economy for the better.

Continuing this post, in this video Thom Hartmann interviews Kshama Sawant, a socialist and member of the
Seattle city council who was instrumental in getting the $15 minimum
wage passed. At around 3:40 Hartmann discusses how he has always
challenged the notion that it takes a great leader to effect social
change. He then asks Sawant, a 'leader' of this movement, how that
squares with her socialist frame. Her response starting at 5:10 is
enlightening and representative of the emerging Commons notion of leadership.

According to this study. Women were allowed to handle penis models made from a 3-D printer for this determination. And there are different preferences depending on if it's a one-night stand or a long-term relationship. For the former a slightly bigger girth than average is more important than length. But for both the ideal length is 6.5". They did not give the girth measurement for either category, or what is average.

Or more bluntly put, to go fuck itself. The following is from The Other 98%:

Walmart owes you money. Big time. They raked in $17 billion in
profit last year, yet they pay their employees so little that folks who
work full-time must turn to food stamps just to feed their kids. And
guess who’s picking up the tab? Every year Walmart racks up $7.8
billion in government subsidies, and they force you and me to foot the
bill. Their explosive growth and ridiculous profit margins aren’t the
result of hard work and a little luck; they’re the result of Walmart’s
scorched-Earth business model - poverty wages, tax dodging, and
extensive use of the social safety net for private gain.

We have a lot of work ahead of
us this summer. We need to stop the FCC from destroying the Internet,
prevent Congress from passing bills that would kill Net Neutrality and
block the latest wave of media mega-mergers. We'd love to talk with you about
how all these developments are intertwined and what you can do to fight
for your rights to connect and communicate.

I started a new thread at the IPS forum by the above name. The initial post follows. Follow the link for ongoing discussion.

A recent FB IPS
discussion reiterated something that has long been happening which I'll
call quacademics. You know, if it quacks like an aqal... The phenomenon
arises because Wilber is often perceived by typical academia as a
religious zealot and/or cult leader and thereby dismissed. The main goal
then is to legitimize his work academically. Hence we have all kinds of
folks pursuing and getting degrees from typical academic institutions
while trying to insert their integral agenda into such programs through
MA and/or PhD theses/dissertations. The hope is obviously to legitimize
integral studies so that it is something more than just an isolated,
sub-cultural phenomenon applicable only in its own bubble. Another hope
is when so legitimized that it can change the world for the better, as
adherents truly believe it is a breakthrough paradigm in the next stage
of evolution that can indeed improve life conditions for all. I applaud
and support such hopes.

But is this truly the most effective place to focus our energies? Is
academia really the cultural leader when it comes to enacting a new and
better paradigm? Take for example Rifkin's work. Yes, he's an academic
but implementing his plan has moved from the ivory tower to the
political towers of power in EU governments. Government is the key
player to enacting such an agenda via laws that govern individual,
social and most of all corporate behavior. Without such law our academic
towers only grow ivy, moss and mold.

Sunday, June 8, 2014

Progressive Christian Jim Wallis supports
the new EPA carbon standards. I'm not crazy about the notion that we
must be good environmental stewards because God gave us dominion over
the earth, but it's a step in the right direction. And he makes a good
point: "I believe the most compelling narratives for dealing with
climate change must be moral ones, theological ones, and biblical ones,
especially if we are to reach and engage the faith community." And this
one on the relation of his spirituality to the environment: "Climate
change is not another issue to move higher up the list of our concerns.
Rather it is the concern central to all other issues."

Given that the US is 73% Christian,
and 62% are members of a church, it makes sense that to
influence them to vote progressively on climate change will require not
just a moral but also a theological and/or biblical framing. I'm going
to leave that up to the Christians like Wallis.

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Maher's special new rule last night was on the open carry movement, where dillwads are carrying their assault rifles into restaurants and other public stores in order to "protect their second amendment rights." Maher makes mincemeat out of them and discerns what this is really all about: a romantic relationship.

John Oliver hilariously parodies net neutrality while also hitting home on the seriousness of the issue. And what you can do about it. He provides the address for FCC comments, and in fact shortly after providing it their website crashed.

The word of the day is crapulous, which provides for many twisted variations.

adjective: 1. given to or characterized by gross excess in drinking or eating. 2. suffering from or due to such excess.

As is I like the root word crap, as in those who are excessive are
full of crap. Apply that to these variations: mapulous, as is an
obsession with map making and categorization; papulous, as in
meaningless psychobabble; rapulous, as in that crappy musical form that
talks instead of sings; sapulous, as in excessive sentimentality,
especially in spiritual jargon; tapulous, as in a sex addict who has to
'tap' every piece within range; vapulous; as in those who excessively
suck the life out of language by trying to be 'objective.' Any others?

I had a colonoscopy yesterday. In preparation one must do a liquid
fast the day before, as well as drink chemical laxatives to
completely clean the colon. I'd done the procedure before and it is
quite unpleasant, not just the starvation but the incessant, frequent
diarrhea This time as part of the prep I decided to turn it into a
spirit quest, to use the fasting and cleansing to prepare for an
experience of the numinous, to converse with god/dess. I told this to
my roommate in a joking manner, but I was also serious.

I thought of American Indians, who do that ritual of piercing
their chests an then hanging by its flesh. And sweat lodges, another
ritual of extreme pain to induce visions. It's sort of like the
crucifixion, going through such pain that one is forced to let go and
let god. Give up the ghost, so to speak. I image childbirth is one
such experience if done without pain meds. I decided to do the
procedure without sedation, to be conscious throughout, so as to feel
every moment of the pain.

Friday, June 6, 2014

Bruce Gibb, an organizational psychologist and SDi practitioner, reviews
the new book. His premise: "[Rifkin's] analysis proceeds from a Yellow,
Stage 7 (S:7) stance." He notes a couple of things I've been harping on since forever. One is that while foundations are built upon
and not eliminated, nonetheless a "more adequate theory replaces
a less adequate one." (My emphasis.) Another is that the socio-economic infrastructure is primarily what drives our evolution, agreeing with Rifkin "that life conditions—and in particular the sources of energy
and the technology of communication—are the drivers of cultural
evolution."

See this
story on the resurgence of progressive Christianity. By progressive
they mean valuing women's reproductive rights, LGBT rights, social
welfare programs, anti-war, climate change activism, gun control,
immigration reform, net neutrality. You know, what the populist
progressive majority value. Consequently they are gaining an upper hand
over their regressive counterparts in redefining Christianity as a
whole. As an atheist I say a hearty Alleluia to that. And mean it.

That's right, no evidence has been provided to that effect. Repeat, none. There's plenty of accusations and hypothetical scenarios, but to date there is no evidence. The government hides behind the specious rationalization that they cannot reveal such evidence for it would further endanger lives. That is not evidence but a smokescreen. In another case of purported leaks causing damage, nothing presented in open court during Chelsea Manning's trial supported that allegation. Again nothing, no evidence. Such claims should be investigated by Congress, the GAO, the IG and determine what harm if any has happened. And that should be weighed by the good such whistle blowing brings.

Predatory check-cashing and
payday-lending companies have been exploiting working-class Americans
for decades by charging outrageous fees and triple-digit interest rates. But
now we have a chance to give the millions of Americans without access
to affordable basic financial services a fair, publicly owned
alternative to payday lenders and big banks. Senator Elizabeth Warren
has an exciting new proposal that would allow post offices around the
country to offer basic financial services like check cashing and bill
paying.

As a student organizer in
Chicago, I've seen the devastating effects of economic injustice
firsthand -- and I want to be part of the solution. That's why I started
my own campaign on CREDOMobilize.com, which allows activists to start
their own petitions. My petition, which is to Congress, says the
following:

Millions
of Americans lack access to affordable financial services like check
cashing, bill paying and small loans. Please support Senator Warren’s
postal banking proposal, which would allow the United States Postal
Service to offer financial services at local post offices around the
country.

Layman Pascal started an IPS thread on an integral religion and my latest comments follow from this post, responding to the inclusion of economic systems in religious considerations. See the discussion for further context.

The various aspects you list could be considered 'lines' in the
kennilingus sense, lines in the various quadrants/zones. While religion
per se could be considered its own line, they way you're doing it could
be viewed as how the other lines intersect/overlap with the religion
line. Which of course is how I see the integral level, as integrating
the various lines rather than merely keeping them in their strict
quadrant/zone sets. I.e., 1) the lines can still be autonomous paradigms
with their own validity criteria, yet there are both interactions
between them through their somewhat porous boundaries, and 2) there are
some universal principles that govern such interactions as well as how
each internal mereological structure is organized: aka differance. See e.g. the nature of endo- and exo-relations via intension and extension for different kinds of mereology in this thread. All of which is a long-winded preamble to including economic systems
in your religious categories.

Recall our discussion in the
anti-capitalism thread where I agreed with the Lingam that the economic
paradigm is likely the most significant for how most of us shape our
consciousness and daily lives.

This is interesting. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig wants to reform campaign finance laws so he's crowdfunding a Super PAC with that intention. The PAC will contribute to candidates who support campaign finance reform. The initial crowdfunding of $1 million from donors of less than $10,000 was reached so it was matched by wealthy donors. The latter included the usual wealthy Democrats but also included a high profile libertarian donor to GOP campaigns. That is Lessig's hope, to encourage a mix from the political spectrum around the issue of money in politics. He might consider approaching the Patriotic Millionaires that financed the recent MoveOn discussion on inequality with Picketty and Warren for his next round of crowdfunding.

Rereading parts of TDOO I came upon the following relevant to recent posts on the commons:

"Where critique focuses on content and modes of representation,
composition focuses on regimes of attraction. If regimes of attraction
tend to lock people into particular social systems or modes of life, the
question of composition would be that of how we might build new
collectives that expand the field of possibility and change within the
social sphere. Here we cannot focus on discourse alone, but must also
focus on the role that nonhuman actors such as resources and
technologies play in human collectives. For example, activists might set
about trying to create alternative forms of economy that make it
possible for people to support families, live, get to work, and so on
without being dependent on ecologically destructive forms of
transportation, food production, and food distribution. Through the
creation of collectives that evade some of the constraints that
structure hegemonic regimes of attraction, people might find much more
freedom to contest other aspects of the dominant order" (section 5.2).

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Jon Stewart makes fun of the regressives that refuse to accept that guns have anything to do with mass shootings. The subject title is what Bill'O the clown O'Reilly said. So Stewart provides those propaganda outlets with a one-size-fits-all response to the continual and ongoing mass shootings in the US so they can get back to the real news. In that parody one of the anchors quips: "Of course there's nothing we can do to stop this from happening, even though pretty much every other developed country has somehow stopped this from happening."

Recall several recent posts on the new EPA CO2 standards. Krugman gave the US Chamber of Commerce study the benefit of the doubt and showed how even if those costs were true it would only be 0.2% of GDP, a bargain. Another post showed how a regional US area has already implement CO2 reductions at lower than projected costs. A post of Rikin's response to the new regulations showed that the IoT will generate over $14 trillion in savings compared with the Chamber's estimated $400 billion in in the same period. So now what?

They appeared together last night on HuffPost Live, video below. The Patriotic Millionaires provided funding for the program, their motto being: Because our country is more important than our money. Quite refreshing given the usual regressive hoarding and oligarchic fascism. (Btw, Krugman explains Picketty's response to the Financial Times over the latter's claim that Picketty got some data wrong.)

The Environmental Protection Agency made a historic announcement. President Obama’s administration
announced proposed regulations that would cut carbon pollution from all
existing power plants by 30% by 2030. We applaud the President's bold action to clean up the way we power our country and the air we breathe.

The planet and our communities
could not wait any longer. As Republicans scheme to obstruct all
progress in sight, the President took executive action against climate
disruption. We can’t let big polluters
continue to harm our environment and our health. The President’s action
is a bold step against big polluters in the long fight to tackle climate
disruption.

In this IPS post Balder linked to an article on the above by networkologies blog. And where have we heard many of these points before? In the OOO thread so linked.

He claims that perceiving nonduality requires not rationality but
intuition. This of course sets up exactly the kind of false dichotomy he
just denounced. It's true that 'false' reason cannot so perceive it,
but 'real' reason can, the latter being exactly the sort of nondual
imaginative rationality L & J describe. A rationality (or vision
logic) that exemplifies the sort of openness to the real he describes.
He acknowledges that language (and therefore rational thought) can get at this via poetry and koan (paradox).

Like several of our posts, he discusses the virtual much like
differance. Object a though he is using the strict Lacanian
interpretation based on desire and sees it more as an obstruction,
whereas I applied de/re to the term (using Zizek and Bryant, both Lacan
experts) to be more akin to the virtual. He also makes the typical
mistake of limiting Derrida to language whereas he was very much into
ontology per se, but does give him create for finding the virtual in language.